Book-Plates

by William John Hardy

The next English book-plate which bears upon it an engraved date is that of Sir Thomas Tresham. On this the inscription reads 'June 29, 1585,' which no doubt refers to the date of engraving, or, probably, to the date at which the design for the engraving was finished by the artist. As a work of art it is poor, but its interest as a book-plate to collectors is not lessened on that account. Tresham was knighted by Queen Elizabeth ten years before the date of his book-plate. We know not much of him, save what Fuller tells us that he was famous for 'his skill in buildings.' One of his sons, Sir Francis, was involved in the Gunpowder Plot, and another, Sir Lewis, was made a baronet in 1611.

These three examples are all the sixteenth century English dated book-plates yet brought to light. Those in the seventeenth century are far more numerous. We find one bearing the date '1613,' which was prepared to place in the volumes given, in that year, by William Willmer, a Northamptonshire squire, to his college library. The inscription on it reads: 'Sydney Sussex Colledge—Ex dono Wilhelmi Willmer de Sywell in Com. Northamtoniæ, Armigeri, quondam pentionarii in ista Domi (sic), viz. in Anno Dñi 1599; sed dedit in Ano Dñi 1613.' The book-plate is clearly early, and shows us fine bold heraldic work. In style it nearly resembles the Bacon plate, and that of Sir Thomas Tresham; but the mantling here descends to the base of the shield. The Willmer plate is in Dr. Howard's Collection; a reproduction of it is given in Mr. Griggs's Examples of Armorial Book-Plates.

Early in the reign of Charles I. may be placed a very beautiful example of heraldic engraving, which Sir Wollaston Franks satisfactorily assigns to a certain John Talbot of Thorneton, who died in 1659. It is inscribed 'Coll. Talbott,' and this John Talbot is called 'Colonellus ex parte Regis'; the quarterings are those of the families of Ferrers, Bellars, and Arderne.

In strange contrast to this fine work is the wood block book-plate of 'William Courtenay of Treemer, in the county of Cornwall, Esquire,' who, in 1632, inherited the Treemer estate. We may note that, not only is this book-plate, like all those yet described, free from any indication of lines or dots to express the colours in the armorial bearings, but below the shield is given a verbal blazon of the coat: 'He beareth or, 3 Torteauxes.'

This seems to be the place to speak of a very puzzling pair of engravings, which certainly appear to have been used as book-plates, dated in 1630. They represent the armorial bearings of Sir Edward Dering. One of these book-plates which I take to be the earlier, shows a less number of quarterings, and contains no indication of a really systematic expression of the metals and tinctures in the arms; but the other and later example does. The same date appears upon each. The second of the two plates occurs bound up in a volume of the Harleian Collection of MSS.; and 'Mr. Humphrey Wanly, library-keeper to Robert and Edward, Earls of Oxford,' in his description of the specimen in the Harleian Collection, calls it 'A printed cut of the Arms or Atchievement of Sir Edward Dering, Baronet, dated A.D. 1630, with a fanciful motto in misshapen Saxon characters; but by the hatching of the arms in order to show the colours, according to the way found out by Sir Edward Bysshe, I guess that it is not so old.'

Now, the Harleian volume, in which this engraving occurs, is a copy, written in 1645-46, of the Heralds' Visitation of Kent in 1619; and in a later, but certainly seventeenth century, handwriting, is a description of the numerous quarterings as they appear on the engraving; so that, whilst rejecting the claim of this variety of the plate to be an engraving of 1630, we may, I think, accept it as at least an early example of the indication of the colours and tinctures by lines and dots. As for the first of the two varieties, I do not see why it should not be as early as the date upon it; there was no particular reason in selecting that date; for I do not find that it refers to any special event in Sir Edward's life. A writer to Notes and Queries, in 1851, states that there were several 'loose copies' of the plate—which variety, he does not say—in the Surrenden Collection, and Dr. Howard saw it 'inserted' in several folio volumes of that collection, when it was disposed of by Messrs. Puttick and Simpson. Very good facsimiles of these book-plates have been given by Dr. Howard in his Miscellanea Genealogica et Heraldica.

Another early instance of the expression of the metals and tinctures occurs in the book-plate of Lord-Keeper Lyttelton, a plate which derives additional interest from the fact of its being the work of William Marshall, the famous frontispiece engraver. Sir Edward Lyttelton, the owner of the book-plate, was made Lord-Keeper in 1641, under the title of Baron Lyttelton of Mounslow. This book-plate, which shows us the arms of Lyttelton of Frankley, was evidently engraved before Sir Edward's elevation to the peerage. The book-plate, which is the earliest English example bearing an engraver's signature, may be dated about 1640.

We know from the arms on dedication plates, and the like, that the expression of colours on shields did not become at all general for many years after 1640. Take, for instance, Hollar's cuts of arms in the illustrations to Dugdale's Monasticon, or his History of St. Paul's. Thus, we must not date every book-plate we find, on which the colours are not shown in the new fashion, as before 1640. The small and unpretentious book-plate of John Marsham of Whom's Place, near Cuxton, in Kent, is an illustration of this. A representation of it is given by Mr. Griggs in his Facsimiles. Marsham was made a baronet in 1663; so the plate is earlier than that, but as it is exactly in the style of the dedicatory plates in the works just noticed, we may place it somewhere about 1655. It is perhaps by Hollar. Likely enough, other examples will come to light.